National Sovereignty versus Universal Rights: Interpreting Justice in a Global Context

Interpreters/translators serve to both codify and clarify the cultural and linguistic boundaries used to symbolise and prop up nationalist agendas within the political asylum system. This paper examines the nationalist agenda operating within the immigration systems of receiving countries like the United Kingdom, drawing on contemporary political philosophical theory in which both universalist and nationalist discourses have come under increasing scrutiny. It discusses well-established dichotomies such as insider/outsider, national/universal, open/closed borders and the ways in which these explicitly or implicitly continue to inform and support the legitimation of exclusionary policies with regard to asylum seekers. It argues that scholarly appeals to a more internationalised discourse of human rights have not challenged these fundamental dichotomies in the case of refugees or asylum seekers. Instead, it notes a tension between public discourses that are oriented toward mutual understanding, “democratic iterations” and those “authorised discourses” in which pre-established power relations are maintained. The paper considers the role of interpreters/translators in helping to sustain or contest this tension in their place within the “politics of belonging” that informs immigration policies and practice.